All the research in the world can't beat millions of years of evolution. Today's roboticists are increasingly looking to nature for inspiration, creating robots that move and behave with uncanny similarity to living animals. We've pulled together 10 of the most fascinating.

The quarter-sized robots work as a swarm thanks to algorithms that dictate their collective behavior. As the video shows, the Kilobots interact with each other in much the same way that a colony of ants does.

Groups of up to 29 Kilobots can work together autonomously, spacing themselves evenly from each other while “walking,” organizing themselves to bring simulated food back to a nest and synchronizing their blinking lights through constant communication.

You’d think technology this cool wouldn’t be cheap, but you’d be wrong: Each Kilobot costs only about $14 to make. Building new Kilobots is cheap and easy, which makes testing new algorithms a relatively painless process and paves the way for larger swarms of robots.